175w ago - Sony has revealed the 2010 Time Trial Demo for Gran Turismo 5 on PS3 has reached 1 million downloads since it's release on 17th December

I'm sure you will agree, these are great numbers! Below is the official press release.

Press Release: GT Academy 2010 Time Trial Reaches One Million Players
Nissan and PlayStation® hail early success of virtual-to-real-racer experiment

The GT Academy 2010 Time Trial is live on PlayStation®Network until 24 January

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) has announced that over one million downloads of the GT Academy Time Trial have been recorded in the three weeks since it went live on 17 December, 2009. GT Academy 2010 is a competition set up by Nissan and PlayStation® to unearth a real racing driver from the virtual world of the hugely successful Gran Turismo® race simulation game.

Run across 15 European countries, as well as Australia and New Zealand, 19 winners will have the chance to take part in a racing driver 'boot camp' at Silverstone Circuit. The eventual, overall winner will take the controls of a real Nissan 370Z race car to compete for a full season in the European GT4 Cup.

The Time Trial stage of GT Academy has given gamers the chance to download a stunning new piece of Gran Turismo for PlayStation®3...

177w ago - Grave from GameTrailers has shared a GT5 video highlighting a humorous physics glitch in the recently released Gran Turismo 5 PS3 Time Trial Demo.

Of course this isn't the finalized GT5 PlayStation 3 game, so there are indeed bound to be glitches in a Time Trial demo.

To quote: "Definitely looks like an unintended physics glitch to me. Those little markers are obviously not bolted to the ground, since the first one moved, yet the second one ramped an entire car without even touching a wheel.

I started hitting those distance markers and I noticed.. the collision detection on those are not only completely off, but extremely exaggerated. If you tap one, the go about 20 meters and I would see the car make a little hop.

I'm sure there's plenty of touching up to do with the engine still."

Check out the video below!

179w ago - Today SCEA Producer Taku Imasaki announced that the Gran Turismo 5 PS3 Time Trial Challenge officially starts this week!

To quote: Two weeks ago we announced the Gran Turismo 5 Time Trial Challenge, and I'm here to give you a breakdown of what to expect when the demo hits PSN this coming Thursday.

This demo was specifically designed for the GT5 Time Trial Challenge to challenge racing fans to master every straight-away, corner and bump of the track.

We want to use this demo to find out who are the best racers in both the US and Canada. We also created this demo to showcase the realism of the brand new physics engine which is constantly improving before GT5 releases.

As Gran Turismo fans know, our GT games let you select between standard or professional driving physics and adjust a multitude of driving assists, but to make this a real "challenge" for all you racing fans, the GT5 demo has professional driving physics, and many of the assists are disabled. But don't worry.

Even if this demo seems challenging, you'll be able to turn on some of those extra...

181w ago - Update: For those curious, Examiner.com reports that the Gran Turismo 5 Time Trial demo is now on the Japanese PlayStation Store, weighing in at 201MB in size and playable in English.

Today Sony's European Brand Manager Penrose Tackie has announced that GT Academy 2010 launches on December 17th with a downloadable Time Trial.

He also shared a trailer video and some GT5 demo details, as follows:

Following the groundbreaking success of the GT Academy last year and as part of our activities around the forthcoming launch of Gran Turismo 5, I am delighted to officially unveil GT Academy 2010.

On 17th December exclusively via the PlayStation store, we will be launching the GT Academy 2010 Time Trial. The time trial will be the only way into this year's Academy, and if you've got what it takes it could be the start of a life-changing journey.

Last year the GT Academy programme unearthed a real driving talent in the form of Lucas Ordonez from Spain, who after winning the GT Academy went on to drive for the Nissan PlayStation race team and take an astonishing second place in the GT4 Championship - all in his first season!